Zero roadkill as Amazon canopy bridges secure 15,000 crossings
Zero roadkill as Amazon canopy bridges secure 15,000 crossings
Suzana Camargo
21 Jul 2026<br>Amazon
Comments<br>Share article
Share this article
If you liked this story, share it with other people.
Threads
Page link
Cite article
Project Reconecta installed eight rope bridges in a municipality in Brazil, and a 15-month study used camera traps to document thousands of arboreal wildlife adapting to new aerial crossings.<br>Safe road passages enable seed dispersal and gene diversity, reversing the "domino effect" of biodiversity loss that begins when highways split habitats.<br>Reconecta’s creator, biologist Fernanda Abra, a National Geographic Explorer and winner of the Whitley Award, is now expanding these low-cost conservation tools to other Brazilian biomes and neighboring Suriname.<br>Brazil’s federal transport department has officially designated the rope bridge design as the recommended national standard for highways to curb the millions of wildlife deaths recorded on roads annually.
See All Key Ideas
Around 7 a.m., with dense fog blanketing the landscape, biologist Gabriel Falquetto had already come across several road-killed animals along ES-164 highway in Brazil’s Espírito Santo state. He was on his way to Kaetés Private Natural Heritage Reserve (RPPN), in the Atlantic Forest, where he monitors wildlife and roadkill in the region.
Suddenly, he spotted the lifeless body of a primate on the pavement. It was a buffy-headed marmoset (Callithrix flaviceps), a species listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. An estimated 2,500 individuals remain in the wild, making it one of the world’s most threatened primates.
"It was extremely painful and discouraging," Falquetto told Mongabay. "We travel through this region every day monitoring wildlife, and we celebrate every encounter with groups of buffy-headed marmosets in the forest."
"Finding an individual in those conditions brings a feeling of sadness and helplessness. Beyond the loss of that animal, the incident reminds us of the impacts our activities have on biodiversity."
About 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) away, on the road that leads to Alta Floresta, a small Amazon town in the far north of Mato Grosso state, cases like the buffy-headed marmoset’s roadkill have not been recorded since 2024. That year, eight canopy bridges were installed, connecting fragmented forest patches. Camera trap footage revealed that, over 15 months, the aerial wildlife crossings enabled 15,000 safe crossings by arboreal animals — and not a single roadkill.
Installation of the first canopy bridges in Alta Floresta, in 2024. Image courtesy of Programa Alta Floresta Não Atropela.<br>The bridges are part of a program involving Projeto Reconecta and the municipal government, along with local organizations and business owners who are eager to conserve the unique biodiversity of their town and promote ecotourism, but were alarmed by the growing number of wildlife-vehicle collisions.
Biologist Fernanda Abra, an associate researcher at the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in the U.S., and the founder of Reconecta, recalled that just hours before installing the first bridges in Alta Floresta, she found two Schneider’s marmosets (Mico schneideri) dead. The species is endemic to the Brazilian Amazon and is threatened with extinction.
"A canopy bridge serves two purposes," Abra said. "The first is to improve connectivity for wildlife, allowing animals to move from one side to the other in these fragmented forest areas. As a result, we also reduce roadkill."
All bridges have two camera traps, one facing the crossing to record which animals are using it and another facing the forest to observe which animals arrive there but decide not to use it.
Among the primate species recorded using the bridges during the first months of the program were the black-faced black spider monkey (Ateles chamek), the Purus red howler monkey (Alouatta puruensis), the northern night monkey (Aotus infulatus), the tufted capuchin (Sapajus apella), Schneider’s marmoset and the Alta Floresta titi monkey (Plecturocebus grovesi).
Described only in 2019 and soon after classified as critically endangered, the Alta Floresta titi monkey has become the symbol of the initiative, which is now entering a new phase thanks to its positive results.
"In August, we will install eight more bridges in the city’s urban area," Abra said. "The only difference is that the electric utility will first need to lower the power lines and insulate them so that if animals jump from the bridge onto the wires, they won’t be electrocuted."
A schneider’s marmosets (Mico schneideri), a threatened species from the Amazon, crossing one of the bridges in Alta Floresta. Image courtesy of Maelle Lima de Freitas.<br>Bridge use increases over time
The project...